Category Archives for Uncategorized

LEED-certified stadia and arenas increasingly dot the sports venue landscape. Zero-waste games are becoming more and more the rule rather than the exception these days. Eco-athletes can be found in most sports. What sports hasn’t had, at least to my knowledge, are Green-Sports Super Fans — fans who support and sometimes travel great distances to watch athletes and/or teams specifically because of their environmental advocacy and actions.

Until now, that is.

Natalka Lindstrom traveled last week from her home in Edmonton, Alberta to Daytona, Florida to see her favorite driver, Leilani Münter, the “vegan, eco, hippie chick with a race car,” compete in the Lucas Oil 200, the opener of the ARCA series.

GreenSportsBlog talked with Natalka both before and after her Super Fan sojourn.

–

TUESDAY FEBRUARY 6: BEFORE LEAVING FOR DAYTONA

GreenSportsBlog: Hi Natalka! I am so happy to find a Green-Sports Super Fan, and one who is a devoted supporter of animal rights activist, plant-based diet advocate, electric vehicle (EV) devotee and climate change-fighter Leilani Münter makes it all the better. Let’s start from the beginning. Where are you from originally and what do you do when not traveling the almost 2,800 miles from Edmonton to Daytona for Leilani’s race in the Lucas Oil 200?

Natalka Lindstrom: Well, I was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, moved to Regina, Saskatchewan and now am in Edmonton…

GSB: A woman of the prairie!

NL: Yes indeed. I work for the Service Alberta division of the provincial government.

GSB: Provincial government worker; that sounds like a great alter-ego for a Green-Sports Super Fan! So how did you come to follow Leilani? Were you always an auto racing fan? Or were you an animal-rights devotee and plant-based diet activist first?

NL: When I was a kid, maybe eight years old, I visited my dad in Winnipeg — my folks were divorced — and he took me to a little raceway nearby. There was this bright yellow car, which I loved. Dad even took me down to the pit! It was so cool. But then I lost interest. I mean, I’d watch auto racing if there was nothing else on TV but I got into other sports like football, softball, baseball and curling.

An 8 year-old Natalka Lindstrom during her first visit to a racetrack (Photo credit: Natalka Lindstrom)

GSB: Curling? I love curling…Even tried it one time. I will curl again, you can bank on that! So if your interest in auto racing fell by the wayside, how did you end up booking a vacation to Daytona to watch Leilani race this weekend?

NL: It goes back to my love of, and concern for dolphins and whales at the hands of humans. I believe it was in 2009 or 2010 that I first heard of Leilani when I saw the DVD of “The Cove,” a powerful documentary film about the slaughter of dolphins off the coast of Japan. I started reading her blog posts, learning more about her activism, saw “Racing Extinction,” another documentary she was in about man-made mass extinction. I just became very impressed with her dedication and willingness to advocate on behalf of animal rights. I loved that she drove a Tesla; that she was using her platform race car driver for animal rights and electric cars was amazing to me.

GSB: So then what happened?

NL: For a few years, Leilani found it tough to get enough funding to race. But I continued to follow her on social media and online and told myself that, when she gets back on the track, I’m going to be there! And so last year, when Leilani was able to race at the ARCA Series season opener at Daytona, I went down.

GSB: Had you ever followed an athlete or celebrity on the road like that?

NL: Nope; this was a first.

GSB: How was that experience?

NL: It was great! I got to meet Leilani at the driver autograph sessions as well as her team, went to the vegan food tent Leilani was running, got some great photos — I’m an amateur photographer. It was all very exciting and great, aside from the fact that Leilani got run off the track and was unable to finish. But she is a fighter and I knew she’d be back in 2018. So I saved my money and when it became clear that she would be racing at the Lucas Oil 200, the ARCA series opener at Daytona this year, I booked my trip. And then last week I received an email from Leilani’s husband Craig — everybody calls him “Kiwi” — offering me a “Pit Pass.”

GSB: You hit the jackpot!

NL: I can’t wait…

WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 14: BACK HOME IN EDMONTON

GSB: So, aside from it being a lot warmer in Daytona than in Edmonton, how was it??

NL: AMAZING!! On Friday, I met Leilani and used the pass to watch the qualifying runs that day for Saturday’s race from the pit. It was so cool. I was watching with Kiwi and her sister Nicolette.

GSB: How does qualifying work?

NL: So there are 40 cars in the race. Groups of four to six cars of the field of 40 race for a few laps — the track is 2.5 miles long — at speeds that sometimes top 180 miles per hour. The order of the start of Saturday’s race is decided by the racer’s time in the qualifying runs. Leilani won her group and she was in first place overall at that time. But there were several groups still to go. In the end, Leilani qualified with the fifth fastest time, a good position for her. And her Venturini Motorsports teammate Natalie Decker had the fastest time to earn the pole position. Two of the five fastest qualifying times by women drivers. How cool is THAT?!

GSB: Pretty cool, I’d say!

NL: We met Leilani back in the garage — she was very excited to get fifth. Kiwi welcomed me like I was part of the team, which was just great. And there were people from SpaceX there…

GSB: …That’s right…SpaceX, Elon Musk’s space exploration company, launched a rocket from nearby Cape Canaveral just a few days before the race, and Leilani drives a Tesla, a company also run by Elon Musk. That SpaceX was there makes perfect sense. So tell me about Saturday, race day!

NL: The race started at 4:30 but I got to the track at around noon and went to the vegan food tent, funded by Leilani’s sponsor, Veganstrong.com. A little while after that, the chef brought out Impossible Burgers for the fans to sample…

GSB: …I know about Impossible Burgers…they’re the vegan burgers that not only taste like beef but also have the look and feel of beef! Are they any good?

Impossible (vegan) Burgers get ready for sampling last weekend at the Veganstrong.com tent at Daytona International Speedway (Photo credit: Natalka Lindstrom)

NL: The build up is intense. At around 4 PM, the drivers get introduced and enter the track, from last qualifier to first, back to front. Leilani, who had meditated before the race, came out looking very confident, waving to the crowd. They loved her. For me, being in the pit was incredible — I was right next to the tire changing crew!

NL: …And Leilani is right in there with the leaders for much of the race. I really think she could’ve won. But she had a couple of challenges with her tires that put her near the back of the pack. That she was able to climb back from 30-something place to eighth is something. Leilani will I’m sure judge herself critically but I think it was one of her best races. We all went back to the garage — Leilani was burning up at first as it was incredibly hot in that car — and there were hugs all around. Her Venturini Motorsports teammate Michael Self ended up winning the race and pole sitter Natalie Decker finished fifth, so the team was very happy.

GSB: Sounds like a strong race for Leilani, terrific publicity for Vegan Strong…

NL: …Oh yeah, for sure! On Sunday I went back to the track as there was another race…

GSB: …That’s right, Leilani and her team have been at the Vegan Strong tent most of this week leading up to Sunday’s Daytona 500, NASCAR’s Super Bowl…

NL: Yes. So I hung out at the Vegan Strong tent where they were again serving Impossible Burgers.

GSB: How did the fans react?

NL: At first, most said things like “this can’t be plant-based. It’s too good!” It took awhile to convince them. One guy insisted, “I’m not gonna try it!” His friend brought him back later, he tried the Impossible Burger and loved it! And, this was really cool…there were some workers at the track who are vegans. They heard what was going on and came over to try the burgers. They could not believe how good and burger-like they were.

GSB: It sure sounds like Impossible Burgers are aptly named! Did you meet or hear any detractors, climate change deniers…that sort of thing?

NL: I have to say that I did not hear or see anything like that during my time at the tent. But it is possible that people say the “right thing” but really think another. Still, as far as I could tell, nothing negative was being said.

GSB: Well, in a small way, this is progress. Which is what Leilani is aiming for. Progress.

NL: Exactly. And that’s the thing about Leilani: She won’t take no for an answer yet she’ll also listen. You will not find anyone more passionate about animal rights, plant-based diet and climate change. And that’s why I’m a fan.

GSB: Correction…that’s why you’re a Leilani Münter, Green-Sports Super Fan. Now we need to find more of you!

Cape Town, South Africa’s largest city with a population about the size of Los Angeles, is facing a catastrophic water crisis. Authorities have sounded the alarm that as soon as June 4 — ominously referred to as “Day Zero” — the drought-stricken city will have to cut off the taps to all homes and most businesses, leaving nearly all of the city’s 3.7 million residents without access to clean running water. How will the water crisis impact the city’s sports teams and events?

Cape Town, South Africa is a sports-mad city.

Rugby, soccer, cricket, cycling, and more have passionate followings among many of the “Mother City’s” 3.7 million residents.

But with June 4 expected to be the day the city runs out of clean, running water — considered to be the case when water levels in dams reach 13.5 percent — sports will find itself in an unfamiliar, yet wholly justifiable position: The back burner.

Before we get into how Cape Town’s sports teams and events are reacting to and are affected by the water crisis, let’s take a quick look at how the city got to this point.

NO WATER IN CAPE TOWN? HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?

According to numerous reports from experts, for the last decade or more, Cape Town’s authorities have been forward thinkers and actors on water conservation. Writing in the February 9 issue of Vox.com, Zeeshan Alleem asserted that the city “worked hard to fix leaks in the pipes that distribute water across the city….Leaky pipes account for between 30 and 40 percent of a city’s lost water…Cape Town has reduced the amount of water it loses through leaks to about half of that. And in 2015…Cape Town even won a prestigious international award for its water conservation policies.”

Despite these successes and others, dams that were completely full just a few years ago now stand at about a quarter capacity and Day Zero is less than four months away. How did this happen?

The main culprits are a once-in-a-century, three-year drought, along with a dangerous lack of water supply diversification — Cape Town gets more than 99 percent of its water supply from dams that rely solely on rain; underground aquifers and desalination are not part of the mix. And, as University of Cape Town hydrologist Piotr Wolski told Laura Poppick in the February 13 edition of Smithsonian.com, climate change is serving as a crucial accelerant.

Whenever Day Zero hits, Cape Town residents, per Alleem’s Vox.com piece, will then “have to go to roughly 200 collection points scattered throughout the city to collect strictly rationed water. People will be allowed just 25 liters — about 6.5 gallons — of water a day.” For context, one toilet flush uses about nine liters of water; the average American or European uses at least 100 liters of H2O per day. And each collection station is expected to be trafficked by roughly 18,000 people each day — think about that for a second — 18,000 people per day. Not surprisingly, South African police and military forces will guard collection points.

Residents of Cape Town wait in line to fill containers with water at a source for natural spring water on February 2 (Photo credit: Bram Janssen/AP)

HOW ARE SPORTS DEALING WITH THE WATER CRISIS?

Here’s a sampling of how the major Cape Town sports leagues, venues and events are dealing with the water crisis:

The city’s many soccer teams were forced to close 13 venues in the city in an effort to conserve water. Cape Town’s five Premier Soccer League clubs are now all playing in Athlone Stadium, which has greatly diminished the quality of the pitch. Going forward, the prospect of game postponements and/or cancellations is real.

Speaking of postponements, the Western Province Rugby Union made the unprecedented decision to delay the start of its season, which normally takes place in April, until at least June. Ashfak Mohamad reported in an IOL News story on February 8, that “the state of various fields around the Cape Peninsula and beyond paints a grim picture…[and] is believed to be dire at many underprivileged community clubs on the Cape Flats as well.”

A parched Hamilton Rugby Ground hosted the popular Cape Town Rugby Tens tournament on February 1-3. Tournament Director Gerhard Ordendaal said the event, which drew 20,000+ fans, was water-neutral, “drawing zero litres of drinking water from the municipal supply.”

The pitch at the usually lush Hamilton Rugby Club ground, Stephan Oval, in Green Point (Photo credit: IOL News)

The Cape Town Cycle Tour, the biggest timed cycle race in the world with upwards of the 35,000 participants, is still on for March 11. Like the Rugby Tens, it claims it will also be water-neutral. Tour director Dave Bellairs told the South Africa Sunday Times’ Craig Ray on January 30 that, “Eliminating the event’s reliance on municipal drinking water will be achieved through a variety of strategies, [including] bringing water in from upcountry for drinking and ice on the route‚ and using locally-produced desalinated water for all cleansing purposes. Water stations along the route will be reduced to 14, [which are] essential from a medical point of view.” As a former long-distance cyclist, I am a bit skeptical that the Tour’s zero-water goal will be achieved. After all, is it a given that the 35,000+ participants resist the understandable urge to take long, post-Tour showers? Hopefully the answer will be a resounding YES but I’m not so sure.

Despite the water crisis-related cancellations of many local cricket competitions, the big international Test match between South Africa and Australia, set for Cape Town’s Newlands Cricket Ground on March 22, is still on. Dave Faulkner, writing in The Australianon February 3, reported that “Newlands has an ample supply of bore water so what is often called the world’s most beautiful cricket ground is exempt from [current] restrictions.” That said, given the heightened tensions in the city, there is a chance the Test will be postponed.

Newlands Cricket Ground, an oasis of green in Cape Town during the three-year drought, is still scheduled to host the Test match between South Africa and Australia on March 22 (Photo credit: Mybroadband.co.za)

The 30,000 runners taking part in the iconic Two Oceans Marathon, set for March 31, will also rely on purified spring water from Newlands. It will be distributed to all participants via sachets (small cloth pouches) and other water delivery systems. Some runners will use hydration packs to fill up at the start of the race instead of using their daily household allowance. All portable toilets brought to the race course will use recycled water and, unlike in past years, there will be no shower facilities at the finish line.

This likely wouldn’t be the case in any other year but, in 2018, I feel comfortable saying that most of the runners in the Two Oceans Marathon will be fine if the race is rain soaked.

A TV audience of at least 15 million is expected to tune into this evening’s delayed tape coverage of the 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremonies on NBC. Hosts Mike Tirico and Katie Couric will no doubt wax poetic about the otherworldly achievements of, and the superhuman obstacles overcome by, a gaggle of (mostly) American Olympians. But will Katie and Mike mention the impressive eco-exploits of some of American athletes? They sure would have a lot to talk about. So I got to imagining what it would be like if they went the eco-athlete route…

Mike Tirico: As you know Katie, all teams are entering the stadium in alphabetical order in the host country’s language, of course in this case, Korean. The United States, pronounced “Mi Guk” in Korean, will come in 26th following Malta and Mongolia and just before our friends in the ever-rising Atlantic, Bermuda. So we’re getting close!

Aerial view of PyeongChang’s Olympic Stadium in advance of the opening ceremonies of the 2018 Winter Games (Photo credit: Time Inc.)

Katie Couric: 고맙습니다Gomabseubnida or Thank you! And you’re right: Here comes tiny Malta, an archipelago in the central Mediterranean between Sicily and the North African coast. With that location, it’s no surprise that its Winter Olympics history is also tiny. In fact, its flag bearer, alpine skier Elise Pellegrin, is the entire Malta team. And, at the 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia, Elise became the first ever athlete to represent Malta in a Winter Olympics.

MT: Fitting perhaps that an athlete would be the first Winter Olympics athlete from a country near the equator at a Winter Olympics held in a tropical climate — impacted heavily by global warming, I might add — like Sochi. Now here comes Mongolia or Mong Gol…

KC: …That’s an easy one to pronounce…

MT: …Indeed. Like Malta, Mongolia has a very small delegation — just two cross country skiers — including flag-bearer Achbadrakh Batmunkh. Unlike Malta, it does have a long Winter Olympics history, dating back to the Innsbruck, Austria Games of 1964. Their heritage has been in the Nordic sports of cross-country skiing and biathlon…

KC: …But that heritage has been under threat due to extensive drought in parts of that landlocked land. Wait, I see in the tunnel…It’s gonna be I believe…YES! Here comes the USA!

MT: Leading the 244-member squad into the stadium is luger Erin Hamlin…

KC: …Erin is a fitting flag bearer. This is her fourth Olympics and she is the first Amercian luger to ever earn an Olympic medal, taking bronze at Sochi in 2014. LOOK AT THE SPIRIT OF THE AMERICANS!! It’s INFECTIOUS!!!

MT: Cross country skiing has been a vast Winter Olympics wasteland for Uncle Sam, with Bill Koch’s silver in 1976 the only medal the country has ever won. But Diggins hopes to double that total in the women’s 1.2 km sprint. She seems to have the tenacity necessary to get to the medal stand. Look no further than her work on the climate change fight. A supporter of a revenue neutral carbon fee and dividend, like that proposed by Citizens’ Climate Lobby, Jessie was quoted in a New York Times article earlier this week saying, “you need to be able to stand up for things you believe in, and saving winter is something I believe in. It just breaks my heart because this is such a cool sport, and winter is so amazing and beautiful and I feel like we’re actually really at risk of losing it. And I don’t want my kids to grow up in a world where they’ve never experienced snow because we weren’t responsible enough.”

MT: You got that right, Katie! Moving from cross-country to alpine skiing, there is Lindsey Vonn, one of Team USA’s biggest stars and brightest medal hopes!! Wow, Lindsey sure looks relaxed!

KC: Vonn, as has been well-documented, has survived a laundry list of career-threatening injuries and yet here she is again, ready to take on all comers in the downhill. The 33-year old won gold in the downhill and bronze in the Super-G at Vancouver 2010. And she looks in top form coming into PyeongChang.

MT: While she is looking for a smooth trip at the Jeongseon Alpine Centre, Vonn’s off-slope approach to life sometimes invites some bumpy controversy. Lindsey recently stated she is representing the United States and not the President here in PyeongChang and that she will not visit the White House should she win a Gold Medal.

KC: Vonn was certainly not happy when the President pulled the United States out of the landmark 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, saying in an Instagram post that “climate change is REAL and I watch the glaciers I love melt more every year…We can’t change the opinions of others but if we are all conscious and make small changes, we can make a big difference. Let’s try to save our planet!”

Lindsey Vonn (Photo credit Zimbio.com)

MT: Speaking of saving our planet, there are women’s halfpipe medal hopeful Kelly Clark and 4-time Olympic cross country skier Andy Newell. Both devote a good amount of their precious spare time to climate advocacy. In fact, last fall Andy, along with several other elite winter sports athletes, went to Capitol Hill to educate and lobby Members of Congress…

KC: …of both parties

MT: …of both parties, yes, about the effects of climate change in winter sports states like Utah and Colorado and in favor of action to help to curtail it.

Andy Newell at the 2014 Sochi Olympics (Photo credit: Andy Newell)

KC: …That’s right, Mike. And his climate advocacy work is not a new thing. Last fall, in an interview with GreenSportsBlog, Newell shared how he and Bill McKibben…

KC: …That’s the one…How he and McKibben “drafted a letter for a group of snow sports athletes called Athletes for Action and that letter was addressed to world leaders, urging them to sign the Paris Climate Agreement.”

MT: An agreement that ultimately was ratified by over 200 countries, including the United States. As we stated earlier, the Trump Administration has decided to pull the U.S. out of Paris. We shall see how that goes. But our South Korean hosts have stayed in Paris and they’ve done some good things from a sustainability point of view with the PyeongChang Olympics.

KC: That’s right, Mike. Hyeona Kim, a senior project manager responsible for sustainability at the PyeongChang Organizing Committee or POCOG, reported that POCOG “is funding wind farms that will produce more than the minimum amount of electricity need to power the 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Games.”

The first-time Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles have long been Green-Sports trail blazers. As the City of Brotherly Love gets ready for Thursday’s parade (please stay off the hotel awnings and street light poles, Iggles fans!), GreenSportsBlog is happy to play some of the Eagles’ Greatest Green-Sports Hits.

IT ALL STARTED WITH…TOILET PAPER?

As Green Sports Alliance co-founder Dr. Allen Hershkowitz likes to tell it, the impetus for the Eagles’ commitment to sustainability — and, for that matter, the beginning of the broader sports-greening movement — can be traced back to 2004 and…

“Back in 2004, the Philadelphia Eagles had recently moved into a brand new stadium, Lincoln Financial Field, and wanted to become more environmentally responsible. The team reached out to [Hershkowitz] to talk about paper, one of his areas of expertise. It wasn’t exactly exciting stuff, but Hershkowitz, then a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) with a track record of taking on ambitious projects, had done his homework: The Eagles’ TP supplier was Kimberly-Clark, which was getting wood pulp from forests in the southern Appalachians that were home to, you guessed it, real-life eagles. ‘The people at the Eagles’ stadium were wiping their butts with eagle habitat,’ he recalls. ‘That’s what we call a branding liability.'”

Indeed.

CHRISTINA WEISS LURIE LEADS THE EAGLES GREENING EFFORTS

Why did the Eagles want to become more environmentally responsible?

Christina Weiss Lurie, a minority owner of the club since 1994, deserves much of the credit. She spearheaded the Eagles Go Green campaign, coinciding with the opening of “The Linc” in 2003. That groundbreaking initiative has seen the Eagles divert 99 percent of their waste from the landfill and generate 100 percent of their electricity from renewable energy.

In a wide-ranging September 2013 GreenSportsBlog interview, Weiss Lurie shared…

…her inspirations for Go Green:

“In the late 90’s, as we planned what became Lincoln Financial Field, we looked for ways to make a positive statement to the community with the stadium. And, while it was not designed with sustainability at the forefront, as time went on I started thinking about how we could operate more efficiently and with a smaller carbon footprint. 9/11 inspired us as well — with the idea that we had to do more to wean ourselves off of foreign sources of energy. We asked the simple question: What can we do? And so, when the stadium opened in 2003 we started the Go Green campaign with something relatively simple–recycling–and things took off from there.”

“It was an uphill battle at the beginning, no doubt about it. We are a business after all and so the costs of greening had to be taken into account at every step of the way. ‘[But] we just persevered! And, at the same time, we empowered the team employees from top to bottom to take ownership of Go Green. From the bottom up, we provided incentives for all employees to choose electricity supply from renewable sources for their homes by paying any premiums for green vs. “brown” power. From the top down, I’ve been fortunate, over the years, to get buy in from our C-level on Go Green, especially our CFO at the time. The net result of the bottom-up/top-down strategy has been astounding: Our recycling rates have gone up from 8 percent in 2005 to 99 percent in 2012!”

…how a variety of forward-thinking companies partnered with the club to make Go Green a success:

“We’ve been very lucky with our vendors. For example, SCA, a Swedish company that has its US headquarters in Philadelphia, is our paper vendor. They provide us with 100% post consumer recycled paper. Aramark, our food concessionaire, initially was resistant to “greening” our food services operations (composting, organics, etc.) due to cost. But ultimately they wanted to find solutions and now are bringing their green operations to other facilities! Going the eco friendly route is a journey and can take time. NRG, our energy provider, built and financed our 11,000 panel solar array at Lincoln Financial Field. Now we generate 30 percent of our electricity from the panels and also mini wind turbines.”

While repeating as Super Bowl champs is super difficult — the 2004-2005 New England Patriots were the last team to turn that trick — the Eagles, through Go Green,have been consistent Green-Sports winners over the past a decade and a half. Last summer, GreenSportsBlog shared how the Eagles continued that trend through the installation of Eco-Safe Digesters® at The Linc and their practice facility:

“The Philadelphia Eagles team[ed] up with environmental partner, Delaware-based Waste Masters Solutions (WMS), on the installation of a BioHiTech GlobalEco-Safe Digester®, a food waste digester and data analytics platform at Lincoln Financial Field. The unit uses a proprietary bacteria formula to break down pre- and post-consumer food scraps via aerobic digestion and send them through sewer systems with no residual solids…This move builds upon the September 2016 installation of a waste digester at the team’s NovaCare Complex practice facility to help decompose pre-consumer food waste. Since then, more than nine tons of food waste has been decomposed and, thus, diverted from landfills.”

BioHiTech Global’s Eco-Safe Digesters will be installed Lincoln Financial Field, the home of the Philadelphia Eagles, and will be managed and maintained by Waste Master Solutions. (Photo credit: BioHiTech Global)

EAGLE ECO-ATHLETES; CHRIS LONG AND CONNOR BARWIN

The Eagles’ Go Green ethos has made its way to the locker room.

Defensive end Chris Long, who donated his entire 2017 salary of $1 million to educational charities, is also the co-founder of the nonprofit Waterboys. A January 2017 GreenSportsBlog story provides some of the inspiring particulars:

“[After Long’s season ends,] the former first round draft pick from the University of Virginia will turn a good chunk of his offseason attention to Waterboys, the nonprofit he founded to use his platform as a pro football player to affect change by bringing water to drought-ravaged Tanzania and other countries in East Africa…

…Long first visited Tanzania to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Seeing the poverty and the challenging quality of life—due, in large part, to the water scarcity in the area—were his catalysts for action. That water deficit has reached crisis levels due to a massive prolonged drought that, according to climate scientists, is being exacerbated by climate change.

…Through Waterboys, Long, philanthropist Doug Pitt and a network of 23 current and former NFLers, including ex-Eagle (currently with the Los Angeles Rams) Connor Barwin, donate their own funds and, through social media, raise money from their fans to support the digging of wells by local workers in East Africa.”

To date, 31 wells have been funded, with each serving 7,500 people at a cost of $45,000.

Speaking of Connor Barwin, while he was with Philadelphia, the popular linebacker became one of pro sports’ leading eco-athletes. He drove a Tesla, rode his bike to work and, as a volunteer, installed solar panels on the roofs of local homes.

GREEN X 2 IN SUPER BOWL LIII?

Given the Eagles Green-Sports leadership, rooting for them to get back to Super Bowl LIII in Atlanta next February is not a heavy lift for this GreenSportsBlogger. And how fitting would it be if, across the sideline, stood the New York Jets, aka Gang Green.

OK, to be completely transparent, the Gang Green moniker has nothing to do with sustainability — rather, it refers to the color of the Jets’ uniforms. But the club does play at MetLife Stadium, a green leader in its own right. And they are, for better and mostly worse, my favorite team. Of course they don’t really have a quarterback, but that’s a story for another day.

Still, I choose to dream big and green. And nothing would be bigger — or greener — than an Eagles-Jets Super Bowl.

Super Bowl LII will be played in Minnesota, one of the most environmentally-conscious states in the country. Host city Minneapolis is mass-transit friendly and filled with LEED certified stadia and arenas. The Philadelphia Eagles and New England Patriots will do battle in LEED Gold US Bank Stadium. The game will be zero-waste and 100 percent of the energy used to power the contest will be offset. Yet, it says here that the most important green aspect of the 2018 Super Bowl may well be two beer ads — unless the NFL steps up to tell the Big Game’s green story to the audience 100+ million people.

Question: What does this triumvirate — Clydesdale horses, the Bud Bowl, and recent catastrophic extreme weather events — have in common?

Answer: They are each themes of Budweiser Super Bowl ads, past and immediate future. If there was a Super Bowl Advertising Hall of Fame, the brand’s ads featuring the iconic, white maned horses and the fun, computer-generated football games played by teams of beer bottles (Bud vs. Bud Light!) would both certainly be first ballot inductees.

But corporate parent AB InBev’s stablemates Budweiser and Stella Artois are going in a different direction for Sunday’s broadcast on NBC.

In “Budweiser’s Super Bowl Beer Ad Isn’t about Beer,” which ran in the January 26 issue of Environmental Leader, Jennifer Hermes reported that the brand’s 60 second Super Bowl spot is actually about…water: “[US corporate parent] Anheuser-Busch currently produces canned drinking water at its Cartersville, GA, brewery, and ships them to communities in need. This year, the company shipped nearly three million cans of emergency drinking water to areas hit by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, and by the California wildfires. In total, the company says it has provided over 79 million cans of drinking water to communities in need. The Super Bowl ad tells the story of its employees in the Cartersville plant who produce the emergency drinking water. [It] features the general manager of the brewery, along with more than 20 of his local colleagues.”

Budweiser’s “Stand By You” water-themed Super Bowl ad (60 seconds)

Stella Artois’ 30 second ad, produced in partnership with water.org, features actor Patriots fan Matt Damon, who calls on beer lovers to step up to help solve the water crisis by buying a Stella beer chalice. Damon asserts that if just one percent of Super Bowl viewers purchase the glass, Stella will provide “clean water to one million people. For five years.”

Quality water is, of course, crucial to the beer brewing process. AB InBev and its U.S. subsidiary Anheuser-Busch has implemented a robust water stewardship and environmental protection program across its sprawling brewery roster.

The initiative has engaged employees, farmers, suppliers and strategic partners to devise and implement a wide range of water conservation and management measures. Anheuser-Busch says this approach helped it reduce water use across all of its U.S. breweries by nearly 50 percent over the last 10 years.

That is a BIG achievement which warrants the BIG ad spend — NBC Sports is charging $5 million dollars for a 30 second spot — on the BIG game to reach the BIGGEST television audience of the year — 111 million people watched the 2017 Super Bowl.

Reaching such a vast audience with environmentally-themed messaging is why I believe Bud and Stella Artois have co-authored the most important green story surrounding Super Bowl LII.

Oh, you might say, “I think the fact that the the NFL, the Minnesota Super Bowl Host Committee, and US Bank Stadium are teaming up to offset 100 percent of the game’s carbon footprint via the purchase of renewable energy credits is more consequential than a couple of ads.” Or, you might opine that “Rush2Recycle, the program sponsored by PepsiCo, and promoted by ex-NFL great Hines Ward, that will help Sunday’s game be the first zero-waste^ Super Bowl, has to be considered the most important green story.”

Exterior of US Bank Stadium, site of Super Bowl LII (Photo credit: SI.com)

While those efforts are, of course, laudable, I still go with Bud and Stella.

Because the audience of 100 million+ people who might see the Bud and/or Stella Artois water-themed ads on NBC will likely be between 50 to100 times greater than the number of people who learn about the zero-waste and/or the offset aspects of Super Bowl LII. That audience includes the 66,000+ fans inside US Bank Stadium, along with readers of national media outlets like Fast Company magazine, which are giving the zero-waste Super Bowl story welcome coverage.

Now, the NFL can easily wrest the “most important green story of Super Bowl LII” title away from Bud and Stella. All it needs to do is to create a public service announcement touting the green aspects of Super Bowl LII — hey, as of this writing, there are three days left; plenty of time for great content to be produced — and air it on NBC during the game.

“As one of the most visible sporting events in the world, the Super Bowl has a unique opportunity to promote environmental literacy and reduce cultural polarization related to climate change,” said Dr. Allen Hershkowitz. “US Bank Stadium’s commitment to 100 percent renewable energy credits, ambitious zero-waste goals, and the [Minneapolis] region’s intelligent mass transit infrastructure, positions this event to be among the most carbon intelligent Super Bowls ever. The question before us is this: Will the NFL meaningfully promote this aspect of the Super Bowl story? Given the bewildering retreat from essential, science-based climate policy being enacted by the worst environmental administration in our nation’s history, a counter message by the NFL promoting progress on climate could not be more important. It has a responsibility to the world to do so.”

ENVIRONMENTAL MESSAGING: A WINNER FOR THE NFL

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, Commissioner of the NFL, talks a good environmental game: “The NFL is a responsible steward of the environment in all areas of our business. Through [these zero-waste and offset projects], the League and its partners hope to set a new standard of environmental sustainability at the Super Bowl.”

The Commish and league should go beyond press releases and talk the green talk to the widest possible audience — i.e. during the Super Bowl. Because doing so would likely be good for business.

Say what?

Hasn’t has been a tough season for the NFL: from anthem protests to “Fire the Sons of B**ches!;” from CTE to declining TV ratings#? Won’t many older fans get ticked off? Isn’t it better for a league whose ownership and fan base is seen as right-of-center to keep quiet about the environment and climate?

No, it is not.

And, again, I say this from a business building, not from the “it’s the right thing to do” point-of-view.

It is a 2016 conversation with an NFL marketing executive who preferred to remain anonymous that sticks with me. He said the one thing that kept him and his colleagues up at night the most was how to attract Millennial and Generation Z fans and keep them.

One thing that resonates with younger cohorts is the environment and climate: across the political spectrum, the 35-and-under set accepts the reality and seriousness of climate change at rates far greater than their older counterparts.

Will embracing climate and the environment be the main catalyst to turning the tide the NFL’s young fan problems? Of course not. This is a complex, multi-factorial problem and going BIG on the environment is, admittedly, not close to the most important potential solution.

But, it says here that an intelligent, clever environmentally-themed PSA will be well-received among Millennials and Gen Zers. Which would help.

Budweiser and Stella Artois, hardly fringe, left wing brands, believe leading with the environment is the right way to go. Will the NFL join them by airing a green PSA on Sunday? I wouldn’t bet* on it.

In the meantime, buy a Stella chalice and (responsibly) enjoy a Stella or a Bud in it on Super Sunday.

^ A sports event can claim “Zero-Waste” status by diverting 90 percent or more of its game day waste from landfill, most often by a combination of recycling and composting.

* I also am not betting on the game itself. My prediction? Patriots 24, Eagles 17. I hope I am wrong.

# NFL TV ratings have declined over the past three years but it still generates, by far, the biggest television audience — and not only in terms of sports programming.

Tenacious.

Leilani Münter needs to add that descriptor to her already adjective-laden tag line. Because while “Eco, Vegan, Hippie Chick with a Race Car,” is very clever and certainly stands out, it doesn’t quite do her justice.

Why tenacious?

Because she continues to hustle to find mission-driven sponsors to fund her races at Daytona and elsewhere. And because she continues to bring her vegan, plant-based diet mantra — along with food samples — to stock car racing fans, when conventional wisdom would say her efforts are being directed at the wrong audience.

OK; “Tenacious, Eco, Vegan Hippie Chick with a Race Car” is maybe a tad wordy, but you get the idea — tenacity is central to what makes Ms. Münter tick.

GreenSportsBlog caught up with Ms. Munter for a quick preview of her 2018 racing and activism schedule before she took off for Daytona in her Tesla from her Charlotte, North Carolina-area home.

GreenSportsBlog: Leilani, it’s great to reconnect. What’s new for you and your team for 2018?

Leilani Münter: We’re building on our 2017 “Vegan Powered” program. We have a new branding — Vegan Strong — with the website launching before our race at the ARCA racing series opener at Daytona on February 10. And we will have a vegan food tent with tasty samples that will be open for fans each racing day at Daytona Speedweeks, which includes the 10th, 11th and then from the 15th to the 18th, which is the day of the Daytona 500. Building on our positive experience doing this last year, our emphasis this year is going to be on the health benefits of a vegan diet.

Leilani Münter (Photo credit: Scott LePage)

GSB: How do you think racing fans at Daytona will respond?

LM: I think those who come to our tent will learn about why being vegan is good for your body — it’s the most efficient way to get nutrients — that’s one of the reasons we call our program Vegan Strong. They will also learn that vegan food tastes great! Not just good but GREAT! Last year we served vegan wings at Daytona and also at Talladega Super Speedway in Alabama that, compared to chicken, have half the fat calories, provide 100 percent of the protein and have zero cholesterol. This year we have something new up our sleeve.

GSB: We look forward to hearing about it. Now I know that your on-track career, your ability to actually race, has been limited by the challenges of trying to find sponsors who are on board with your vegan, climate change mission and who are interested in reaching auto racing fans. I also know that if you are racing in 2018, you have some sponsors, including a new one. Fill us in…

LM: Getting corporations to sponsor us has been a challenge but we’ve found success with some great, mission-aligned nonprofits. In 2017, we were sponsored by A Well-Fed World and they are back again this season. We’ve also added a new nonprofit sponsor, TryVeg.com. These sponsors are essential to allowing us to race and to having our tent at Daytona Speedweeks as the costs are significant.

GSB: Congratulations on gaining the sponsorships. Why do you think they came aboard, aside from their belief in you and your mission?

LM: One big reason is that we had a successful 2017 in terms of media coverage of our efforts at Daytona and also at Talladega. Fox Sports covered us during the race and also ran features on us. That, along with other online and social media coverage, generated media exposure to the tune of 161 million impressions…

GSB: Incredible!

LM: Thanks. That’s really what helped us secure the funding for Daytona 2018. And we will be making an announcement at Daytona about the rest of our season schedule, so stay tuned for that.

GSB: We will for sure. Now, as you mentioned at the top, you’ll be racing in the ARCA Series event on February 10 at Daytona. Just what is the ARCA Series and how does it relate to NASCAR?

LM: Sure. ARCA stands for the Automobile Racing Club of America. It is a feeder division into the top three national series of NASCAR.

GSB: So is it fair to say ARCA is to NASCAR as Triple A minor league baseball is to Major League Baseball?

LM: There is absolutely no reason I can’t win it this year. Last year I was running in fourth place in the final stages of the race and then with just 15 laps to go I got taken out by a competitor. As long as I have a clean race, I’m going for the win!

GSB: I wouldn’t bet against you, that’s for sure…Now, in the ARCA Series, you’re driving a standard, internal combustion engine car that consumes gasoline. I, of course, get that that’s the price for bringing your vegan, eco message to auto racing fans — an audience that is assumed to not be open to such a message. So this makes perfect sense. On the other hand, have you looked into also racing in the Formula E, electric vehicle (EV) series that is gaining lots of fan interest?

LM: Actually, I’m involved with a new EV series that’s just getting started; the Electric GT Series based in Barcelona. When it launches, we’ll all be driving Tesla Model S that has over 1,000 lbs of weight removed and many other adjustments to make it into a real race car. And it’s the first electric car to win Motor Trend’s Car of the Year award. I was the first American driver to sign up for the new series.

GSB: Why the Electric GT Series and not Formula E?

LM: The appeal of NASCAR is that it uses cars similar to the models driven by regular folks. Similarly, I love the fact that Electric GT will feature Tesla Model S, the car I’ve been driving since 2013 — and charging it with electricity generated by solar panels on the roof our house.

GSB:…And now Tesla’s started selling and shipping their Model 3 — priced at $35,000 range — by far their most affordable offering yet. Once they up their production run on the Model 3, many, many more people will be driving Teslas…

LM: Very cool. And competition is good but my loyalty is to Tesla because they took the risk, powered through the times when no one believed in electric cars. So the Electric GT Series and I are a perfect fit.

GSB: When will the series launch?

LM: It’s not clear just yet. Starting a new racing series is not an easy task, especially as it relates to signing sponsors.

GSB: You know that better than most…

LM: Exactly! I know they are hoping to launch the series in the second half of 2018, and there are a lot of moving parts but eventually I think it will be a fantastic racing series. Meanwhile I’ll race in the ARCA series and hopefully make the next step to NASCAR. Stock cars is where the eyeballs are and I want to do what I can to influence fans to make their next car purchase or lease an electric car. And, while I’m at it, I will work to show them that eating a plant-based diet and buying solar power are also great life decisions. The more fans I reach, the more I impact…Simple as that.

GSB: That’s so great. How has the fan reaction been?

LM: Oh, they love it! At the vegan tent, I tell them, with a plant based diet, aside from the health benefits, there’s no animal cruelty and it’s better for our environment, and the food tastes great. They’re like “How do they make chicken out of plants?” Then they taste it — the first bite is the key — and they’re hooked. It’s the same thing as with driving a Tesla — once you try it, you’re hooked.

GSB: Well, I can’t wait to taste the vegan wings. In the meantime, all the best at Daytona, Leilani!

Well-known global corporations, from BASF to Nike to Tesla, have waded into the Green-Sports waters. While it makes sense for them to do so from PR and mission points of view, Green-Sports, for now, represents a small aspect of these companies’ businesses.

Then again, there are startups for which Green-Sports is a significant part of their business. Last year, GreenSportsBlog launched an occasional series, Green Sports Startups that focuses on small (for now) companies that see the greening of sports as existential to their businesses’ prospects for success. Our first such newbie was Nube9, a Seattle-based company committed to making recyclable sports uniforms in the U.S.A. from American fabrics. We followed that with a profile of Underdogs United, a startup looking to help sports teams already talking the green talk to walk the green walk by selling them renewable energy credits generated by crucial greening projects in the developing world.

Today we feature Phononic, a technology startup that sees sports arenas and stadia as a key target market in its audacious ambition to disrupt the set-in-its-ways refrigeration market, leading to a meaningful reduction of carbon emissions.

After talking with Tony Atti, the energetic, Pied Piper-like founder and CEO of Durham, North Carolina-based Phononic, for maybe two-three minutes, I was ready to stop the interview.

Instead, I wanted to get out there and sell his market disrupting, carbon emissions-reducing refrigerators. And I’d never sold a refrigerator before!

But before I started selling, I thought I should write the story of how Atti got into the refrigerator-disruption business — “we want to be the ‘Tesla of Refrigeration” — and how big a deal Phononic’s advance can be for the sports world and far, far beyond.

“I grew up in Buffalo, New York — Go Bills! — and ended up getting a PhD in chemistry at the University of Southern California,” recalled Atti. “Then, quite by accident, I fell into working at a boutique venture capital fund in New York City back in the early 2000s.”

Tony Atti, founder and CEO of Phononic (Photo credit: Tony Atti)

The firm’s bread and butter were startups incubated at universities, with a focus on sustainability and energy technology companies. They also took the unusual approach of placing their top executives in operational roles at some of the companies in which they had invested. So Atti went down to the Research Triangle area near Raleigh, North Carolina to work with one of the firm’s companies.

More Atti: “I did an 18-month stint in North Carolina; when that ended I pursued other opportunities, including in Silicon Valley. It was in Northern California that I met the co-founder of Phononic in 2009. At that point, it was just an idea, and a very long shot at that.”

So, what was Phononic’s long-shot, unique selling proposition?

“Phononic is an exemplar of what tech-based venture capital is all about: disruption through solid state semiconductor innovation. This kind of innovation transformed the computer, data, solar power, and lighting businesses — and much, much more,” shared Atti. “Phononic exists to demonstrate that it’s possible to bring solid state semiconductor innovation — that is to say microchips — to refrigeration and other cooling. Our goal was and is simple: To disrupt the 100+ year old domination of compressor and Freon-based refrigeration.”

At the outset, the company operated virtually, with development partners from the University of Oklahoma, Cal-Tech and the University of California-Santa Cruz working with Phononic to prove the technology worked. Atti then decided to locate the company in North Carolina, setting up shop on North Carolina State University’s Centennial Campus in Raleigh from 2010-2013. By 2014, he had moved Phononic’s offices to nearby Durham, where the company designed and manufactured semiconductor chips to meet four critical criteria — efficiency, scale, manufacturability and cost — that would determine its ultimate viability.

Nobody Believes In Us!

Nobody believes in us! has served as a powerful motivational fuel for some of the great upsets in sports history. It also fueled Atti and his Phononic team during the early days.

“We flew around the world with our chips and our performance data, but no one believed in us. You have to understand that the incumbents in the refrigeration markets, like fossil fuel companies, were resistant to change beyond all reason. That just made us work harder. So, we went to the step of ‘product-izing,’ which means we built a prototype refrigerator around the chip, to show the skeptics that our technology was superior in the lab and in an actual refrigerator.”

Chips are indeed superior to Freon and compressors on a host of metrics: Reduced energy usage, far less pollution, reduced noise and weight, no vibration, better use of space and more. And, by 2016, Phononic had a finished refrigerator prototyping and began mass production, manufacturing more than 3,000 small-sized refrigerators over the past 18 months.

Initial Target Markets: Life Sciences, Healthcare and Hospitals

If you haven’t figured it out by now, Atti subscribes to the “Go Big or Go Home” philosophy of life. Taking down the compressor-Freon refrigerator market is one example. Another are the big, competitive, and challenging markets he chose to tackle first: Life sciences, healthcare and hospitals.

“With life sciences and healthcare, refrigeration absolutely cannot fail,” asserted Atti. “So, we went right for it, in the high-pressure world of neo-natal units, with a ‘We Protect the Sample’ mantra. Our refrigerators had to protect the drugs 100 percent of the time. We did that. Our surveys of hospital staff to get their takes on the user experience came back strongly positive. So, we knew we had something.”

Next Up: Stadium and Arena Luxury Suites

Food and beverage was the next market Phononic would try to penetrate. To do so, Atti felt that managers of luxury and club suites at sports arenas and stadia would be particularly interested in the unique value his disruptive refrigerator could provide.

As Atti tells it, “There are many advantages of a Phononic vs. a compressor-based refrigerator for suite operators. Our current models are small, ‘dorm room style’ and also larger built-in refrigerators, the perfect size for suites. The Phononic microchip-based system takes up less space than a compressor — so our storage capacity is significantly greater in the same physical footprint. Our product makes little to no noise. Our temperature controls are more accurate. Phononic refrigerators need much less maintenance than do compressor-based refrigerators, as there are no moving parts in a chip-based system. And the security system, which uses electronic keyboard technology, is superior. These are all big advantages.”

Chris Diamond, Vice President of Food and Beverage for the arena, bought in early: “I was on board from day one. I’m from Niagara Falls; Tony’s an energetic Buffalo guy, so we Western New Yorkers got each other. More importantly, the Phononic system was a clear improvement for us on a number of key metrics vs. traditional refrigerators for our loge boxes— The Phononic refrigerator was quiet; our refrigerators were noisy. The Phononic refrigerator did not heat up; ours would get very hot. The new system needs next to no maintenance — all we need is a tech that can change a motherboard every once in a great while.”

Soon after, two Phononic refrigerators were deployed in each of PNC Arena’s seven loge boxes — the undercounter/built-in units are not big enough for the arena’s more spacious suites yet. Diamond brought a key wine vendor to an event, not letting him in on the change: “The guy was blown away by the quiet of the new units — he couldn’t believe it! He told me ‘I want one for my house!'”

Phononic refrigerator in one of the loge boxes at PNC Arena (Photo credit: PNC Arena)

The seven loge boxes are clearly just the beginning of the Phononic-PNC Arena relationship.

“I told Tony that there’s enough work here for Phononic for five years and more if you can get me bigger refrigerators,” declared Diamond. “I need them for our 51 larger suites but that’s just the start. A big trend in stadium and arena food service is ‘Grab & Go’, small, mobile stands. This summer, I want to be the first arena to use Phononic to cool its ‘Grab & Go’ installations.”

Phononic’s Environmental Benefits Important for PNC Bank Arena

While Phononic refrigerators’ reduced maintenance costs and quiet operation are certainly important to Diamond and the PNC Arena team, so too are its environmental benefits.

Per Diamond, “Since we opened in 1999, the environment has been an important operational consideration — it needs to be, as we see 1.5 million visitors annually. Recycling has been big since day one, as has the minimizing of waste. So, the environmental advantages of Phononic got our attention.”

Tony Atti with a Phononic refrigerator (Photo credit: Phononic)

Phononic’s most disruptive environmental feature is the elimination of Freon, a major greenhouse gas contributor, from the refrigeration the process.

“Over the next 30 years, it is expected there will be as much CO₂ pumped into the atmosphere from refrigeration and air conditioning as there will be from cars,” noted Atti. “There has been a necessary move to eliminate or reduce the amount of Freon from the refrigeration/cooling process while maintaining the compressor system, but potential replacement substances present other problems. Phononic is completely different and its operation actually uses CO₂ as opposed to generating or releasing it. And less maintenance visits means fewer transportation-related CO₂ emissions. The refrigeration industry needs disrupting and Phononic is positioned to do it.”

Loge Boxes at PNC Arena Are Just the Beginning

Phononic is talking to other arenas about their innovative refrigeration system. “Many arenas and stadiums are seeking environmentally sustainable solutions, not only from the ‘it’s the right thing to do’ perspective, but also to save money, to drive profitability,” said Atti. “We are selling a variety of ‘refrigerator as a service’ options for 2018 that will appeal to sports venues, including a small ice cream freezer that will move from suite to suite. Bigger versions of our ‘undercounter’ style refrigerator are in development — they will allow us to go beyond suites to servicing the arena or stadium bowl. Consumer models are in our medium-term plans as well.”

Sounds to me to like Atti’s goal of Phononic becoming the “Tesla of Refrigeration” is not at all farfetched.